Friday, January 25, 2008

poetry in stitches

This is a knitting project (sorry for the backlit photo!) that I completed years ago, but I haven't knit anything as involved and time-consuming since...so I thought it was worth posting. The pattern is from Poetry in Stitches, an out-of-print knitting book, but I had to majorly rewrite the pattern because I knit this sweater with handspun yarn that was much thinner than what the pattern called for. The original pattern was on page 120 of the book, and had accents in black instead of brown, as well as "lice," a dot pattern, all over.

The yarn is handspun Blue-faced Leicester in natural and brown. The colored yarn is the same Blue-faced Leicester that I naturally dyed with fustic, osage orange, cochineal, madder, and indigo extracts. Looking back at the original picture of the sweater, it seems I managed to match the colors pretty well with my natural dyeing!

2 comments:

How beautiful. And I'm so impressed that you spun and dyed the yarn yourself. With natural dyes, no less. Very inspiring!

I love Poetry in Stitches. The shaping of many of the patterns can get a little boxy, but the patterns and colours are so beautiful. I have yet to knit anything from it yet. Seeing your lovely garment, I'm quite tempted... Do you wear it much?